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Monday, September 18, 2006

Accumulated data

In no particular order.

Lemony Snicket interviewThe Book Standard has an interview with Daniel Handler, who is evidently responsible for the series of books by 'Lemony Snicket', with the overall title A Series of Unfortunate Events. I have never read any of the books, but I have seen the movie, which was absolutely wonderful.

Booker shortlistIf you care, the Booker shortlist has been announced, and Sarah Waters is on it. The Night Watch is easily the weakest of her books, but the Booker being the silly affair it is, Sarah might well win. At 5/1 she was not a bad bet, but the odds have now shortened to 2/1.

Carl HiaasenCarl Hiaasen has a new book out. I think I've read all the others, and I look forward to this one.

French author slams BritsA French author has written a book describing the British as a nation of 'vulgar, aggressive, unprincipled, consumerist zombies'. Yup, sounds about right. We don't like the Frogs much either. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Two more for the optimistsBritish publishing seems to be going through another of its periodic fits of throwing money at authors, and these two examples will appeal to those of you who believe that you are about to win the lottery. (Excuse me while I snigger.)

Diane Setterfield was paid (allegedly) £800,000 by Orion and over $1 million from a US firm.

And this morning's Times has the story of William Petre, who survived 50 rejections (only 50?) and ended up with a contract for (allegedly) £165,000.

Romantic fiction on the boxStarting tonight (Monday 18 September), Daisy Goodwin is presenting a series of four TV documentaries which constitute a defence of romantic fiction. Showing on BBC 4, the series is rightly generating some advance publicity. Last week's Telegraphhad a lively discussion of whether men can write convincingly about women (and anybody who thinks that Anna Karenina and MadameBovary prove that they can is on very weak ground indeed). And then Daisy Goodwin herself had a good few column inches in the Sunday Times.How to sell 20 million booksYou want to sell 20 million books or so? It's really quite easy. Janet Evanovich tells you how: you just spend ten years collecting a crate full of rejection slips and then you get the hang of it.

Hmm... I don't think soPublishers Lunch last week mentioned the Sobol Award, which offers (reportedly) a prize of $100,000 for an unpublished novel, plus nine other prizes. One snag: an $85 entry fee, which apparently means (I haven't used a calculator myself) that only 1,700 entries will cover the prizes and they are expecting 50,000 entries. The organiser of the Sobol Award is Sobol Literary Enterprises, an agency (apparently) which will represent the winners.

Lunch points out that 'the likes of blogging agent Miss Snark and the Preditors & Editors web site have raised warning flags. Aside from the fees, objections include the requirement that contestants agree to have their entries represented by the Sobol Agency in order to be considered as a finalist. Miss Snark notes: "This literary agency as far as I can tell has no sales."'And she, I think, would know.

Gloom and doomA few months ago I commented on the fact that the UK non-fiction bestseller list contained a large proportion of books about children being abused or mistreated in some way. Well, the trend for gloom and doom continues.

The current paperback non-fiction bestseller list features the following:

Rock Me Gently/Judith Kelly: controversial memoir of a miserable upbringing in a Catholic orphanage.Call Me Elizabeth/Dawn Annandale: How a woman was forced to turn to prostitution to make ends meet.Don't Ever Tell/Kathy O'Beirne: The horrors of a childhood spent in the infamous Magdalen laundries.Little Girl Lost/Barbie Probert-Wright with Jean Ritchie: Tale of sisters fleeing war-torn Germany.God's Callgirl/Carla van Raay: Story of a nun who escaped the convent only to fall into a life of prostitution.

Was is always like this, or have I only just noticed?

Gerald SibleyrasGerald Sibleyras is, it would appear, a successful French playwright, in the boulevard comedy tradition, and he is currently having a little bit of a flurry in the UK. His play An Hour and a Half Late is currently touring, starring Mel Smith, and Heroes has recently won the 2006 Olivier award for best new comedy.

Mrs GOB and I saw An Hour and a Half Late at the Theatre Royal, Bath, last Saturday. It's a modestly entertaining piece, aimed firmly at the 50-plus audience. A middle-aged couple sit and discuss, for 90 minutes, where their marriage has been and where it's going. More entertaining, perhaps, than it sounds, but not a world-beater by any means.

Tao Lin returnsTao Lin's sixth book is now available at the Bear Parade. Entitled Today the Sky is Blue and White, it is certainly a bit different from the average run of things.

VoidVoid magazine is apparently interested in literary postmodernism, and it's not without a sense of humour.

Tonto PressI'd forgotten Tonto Press, though I have, I'm sure, mentioned it before. Anyway, Tonto is a UK-based small press which has been running a competition for new novelists. Some 400 submissions have been reduced to eight.

Song poems for the 21st centuryMartin Rundkvist did some research into the musical equivalent of the 'get your book published now' market and came up with some stuff about a blind man's penis. (Always remember: I don't make this stuff up; I just report it.)

You think you have a hard time?James Paul Long sent me this link to a story about a bookseller cum publisher whose warehouse was bombed in Iraq.

InstitutionalizedThe authors of Institutionalized have set up a new web site to plug the book. Rather to my surprise, since the book is a bit of a spoof in general, and ditto the web site, some of the readers' recommendations are from real people. Or, let's put it this way: there is a real David Weinberger, and there is a real Uncle Phil.

Hook meIf you're thinking of writing a novel, Lynne Scanlon has some advice on how to hook the reader, and the importance of same.

Kenyon ReviewThe Kenyon Review (literary, of course, as its name suggests) is open for submissions again. The editor points out that last year, two out of a total of twenty short stories that received the prestigious O. Henry Prize were first published in KR. Both came from the slush pile.

Twin authorsAn anonymous commenter points out that twin brothers, Jyoti and Suresh Guptara (currently 17 years old) are publishing Conspiracy of Calaspia, which is part 1 of their epic fantasy series Insanity.

These two might just be worth keeping an eye on. They already have some impressive endorsements, e.g. from Richard Adams (Watership Down) and other published writers. Publication is to be in Switzerland (where they live), India, and the UK. The UK publisher is, er, Aultbea. Well, we all have to start somewhere.

9 comments:

Hi!It has been a while! You seem to be in a rather sombre mood. I read my first Lemony Snicket book right after I saw the movie. Good read.Do try and read it. Thanks for the news about the Guptara twins' book. Strange but there hasn't been anything written about them in the indian press. Considering how people are always writing about an indian's achievement when anything noteworthy is done by absolutely anyone of indian origin, this is indeed a surprize. Not that anything is wrong with it, mind you.We all need a boost of national pride some times; especially in these times.

While the international press and public are awaiting the release of the Guptara twins' Conspiracy of Calaspia, the Indian Press has still not woken up to the fact that the same press release that was circulated in Europe fifteen days ago was also sent to them at the same time. The reason why the Indian Press is slow is because they follow the JONES for their taste, likes and dislikes in their reading habits. As the indian press likes to receive their information via fax, the press info sent some time ago must be lying somewhere under the stack of papers - forgotten.

i think you're being too hasty in chastizing the indian press...about a month ago evryone from India Today to the Hindu(both of which command a rather impressive circulation,for those not-so-much-in-the-know) were all over these guys heaping glorious encomiums on the ostensibly would be Tolkeins...i mean COME ON..even if some guy doing something big had a remotely indian connection(like even if hes the chacha of a bhanja of a bhatija of mami's kutta's neighbours son,{ask your indian freinds to explain the references}he would be in the headlines for the next weeks...so maybe you've just been a bit out of touch..personally, i am a bit guarded about the hype..it all seems a bit dubious too me...and all too commonplace(christopher paolini anyone?)..theres enough rehashed jrr to fill every shelf in every borders/barnes/crossroads outlet there is,yet how much of it is actually readable?..plus theres aultbea..im no writer,but i am skeptical of the way theyre trying to market the book and themselves..not being one is probably what makes me a pretty good skeptic in the first place..

i think you're being too hasty in chastizing the indian press...about a month ago evryone from India Today to the Hindu(both of which command a rather impressive circulation,for those not-so-much-in-the-know) were all over these guys heaping glorious encomiums on the ostensibly would be Tolkeins...i mean COME ON..even if some guy doing something big had a remotely indian connection(like even if hes the chacha of a bhanja of a bhatija of mami's kutta's neighbours son,{ask your indian freinds to explain the references}he would be in the headlines for the next 3 weeks...so maybe you've just been a bit out of touch..personally, i am a bit guarded about the hype..it all seems a bit dubious to me...and all too commonplace(christopher paolini anyone?ok so well he actually was good)..theres enough rehashed jrr to fill every shelf in every borders/barnes/crossroads outlet there is,yet how much of it is actually readable?..plus theres aultbea..im no writer,but i am skeptical of the way theyre trying to market the book and themselves(a largely feeble attempt at self-aggrandizement,might i add)..not being one is probably what makes me a pretty good skeptic in the first place..

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This released was one of the best at least for me because I watched the film in the cinema and it was terrific, actually it was inspired in the book A Series of Unfortunate Events, what I like the most was the way the main character performed during the movie.

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